


Haunted

by BleedingCoffee



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Royai - Freeform, Team Bonding, special guest appearances by your favorite dead characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8892868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingCoffee/pseuds/BleedingCoffee
Summary: Ed and Al find a promising lead and it takes them and Mustang and Hawkeye to a "haunted" house. They have to confront what haunts them in order to find answers and a way out of their predicament. Light RoyAi, heavy on the team bonding.





	1. Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Started for a Tumblr fic meme "It's all your fault" and turned into this 19k word fic somehow.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own FMA

 

* * *

_Haunted_

Chapter 1

**Ghosts**

* * *

"A haunted house?" Roy repeated as Ed continued showing him his findings. The enthusiastic kid had notes spread all over his desk along with a stack of files he had checked out of the records room. He was surprised Ed wasn't making some snide remark in reply and was even more perplexed when he looked at him with his eyes shining bright with excitement.

"Well, that's what the locals say, but it's not like ghosts are real. I mean whatever is going on there is something to do with alchemy and this guy's research is really hard to understand. " Ed realized Mustang was just staring at him. "I guess, we're asking you to look at it and see if you can make some sense of all this."

It was polite. Cordial. Weird. Roy looked over at Riza and she gave him a look that said 'don't be an ass' and he looked at the notes put on display for him. He could see why the boys were hitting a wall, these notes were hardly worth submitting with the application for state certification. This alchemist, Leonard Grange, appeared to be a basket case on paper and it was doubtful he was any better in person. "Considering these notes, I'm not surprised he was denied certification."

"Why would he submit his notes in the first place?" Al leaned on the desk. "Brother didn't have to show his research at the exam, he just had to show his ability."

Roy flipped through a journal. "Clearly desperate. He was looking to become a state alchemist so he could make something of these theories. I don't know what to even categorize what I'm seeing here. It's part necromancy, part insanity and part carnival physic. How did you two even find this guy?"

"Well, we were talking to Sheska and she remembered reading about him." Al said.

Ed leaned on Mustang's desk and pulled a newspaper out of a file. "He did all his research in his house. He died in there and it was condemned after being deemed unsaleable. Obituary says he was alone, nobody attended his funeral or the auction for his property. Now I just need someone with enough clearance to get us an address."

"Ah." Roy said. And there it was. The real reason the kid was being nice.

Ed shot him a glare. "What was that 'ah' for?"

"Just was waiting for you to get around to revealing what you really wanted here."

Ed slapped the folder shut. "Look, I know this seems like it's a stretch. A haunted house. An alchemist who was working on communicating with the dead..."

"It's all we have right now." Al said and watched Ed clean up his notes. They _were_ desperate. "It doesn't seem like it would be useful for getting back our bodies, but if this man was able to open up a line of communication with another dimension, maybe it's where my body is. Maybe it's a start to opening up a portal to that place so we can get our bodies back."

"What about equivalent exchange?" Roy asked as Ed tried to grab his favorite executive pen in his pile of paperwork and walk off with it. He slapped his hand down and stopped it from disappearing. Riza gave that to him as a gift. It wasn't a real present, just something she went out and bought after he told her his pen dried out and he couldn't sign any more paperwork that day, but she gave it to him and it was precious. Red and gold, like flames, not like Fullmetal Pen Clepto. "You exchanged your limbs and body, there must be balance."

"We don't know until we look into this. From some of his notes, " Ed threw the top folder down on the pen. "He had theories that souls and bodies were drawn to each other. A magnetic pull."

"That was something we heard before, from Barry the Chopper." Al reminded the Colonel.

"And he said his research showed that the body does retain a connection to it's lost parts like in the event of a lost limb or something." Ed could see Mustang was ready to roll his eyes. He really wanted to look at the files about Grange's exam, but that was off limits to even Mustang, so he'd settle for an address to the house where he left all his research. "So, if that portal can be opened, maybe that is all that is keeping souls and bodies apart. I saw a gate. I saw a being. I saw a place separate from this world. So what if this guy found a key to that?" Ed asked and pointed to some of the paperwork in the man's file.

Roy read it, it still sounded so desperate to him. A man trying to just reach out across the boundary of death and talk to dead people again. Then there was something he saw, a sentence that stood out now. "Memories are what keeps a person alive, once the memories fade so does the soul."

Ed watched him shuffle through the pages to find a picture of the array the man was experimenting with. He squinted as he looked at the runes and something in his attitude changed. Ed was glad he picked up on it so quick, he knew he was losing the Colonel's interest. "Yeah, that's what we saw too. That his array isn't about human transmutation or soul binding or anything related to that field at all. It looks like it's psychological, like he felt souls were energy created by the body. That souls were a philosopher stone that powered a human being. I want to see his actual research because there are parts that we've heard before and even if the whole makes no sense...maybe there is a link he discovered in the process."

"Alright." Roy said and pushed the paperwork over to Ed and made sure his pen was not swept up in the process. He put his pen in his drawer and made sure it wasn't out in the open any longer. There was something that struck a nerve about all this and he couldn't put his finger on it. "I'll make some calls, but I'm coming with you."

"Why?" Ed said dryly. He wanted help, not a chaperon.

"I don't think Grange really understood what he was dabbling in. I don't think he cared." Roy stood up and grabbed his coat. "I've seen alchemists like this. So driven by a need to find answers that it blinds them to anything else."

Riza watched the boys tense and Roy didn't realize it as he put his jacket on. That struck home for them, they had seen Shou Tucker go down that path. She knew Roy was talking about someone else though, his own teacher, her father.

Roy finished buttoning his jacket and continued. "They don't see right or wrong, they don't see any boundaries what so ever. So when you walk into this house you're walking into a mad man's lair. It's haunted because it was everything that haunted him. I'm going with you."

* * *

Days went by and Riza was finally to the point where she didn't think it was cute anymore that Roy and the Elrics were running around the Grange house sharing discoveries and excitedly talking about alchemy theory. "We have been here for days, sir. Work is piling up at the office. Work that you will be held accountable for."

Roy looked up from his place on the floor of the living room and blinked at her. "It's all your fault."

"How so, sir?" She asked and crossed her arms as she looked down at him carefully regarding his notes and looking at an array painted on the floor with _something_ that wasn't paint.

"You gave me that look that said, 'Don't crush their hopes and dreams, go take the kids to the haunted house'." Roy tapped his pen on his notepad as he considered the markings on the ground.

She _did_ encourage this. She also didn't expect the dead man's house to be covered in his notes. Floors, walls...covered in scribble. He even wallpapered over old notes so he could write more. No wonder the locals stayed away from this place, she was surprised no one burned it down yet.

"I think I figured this one out!" Ed hollered from the kitchen. "I think...I can fix this."

She looked down at Roy and waited for him to react to that with more than an amused smile. Then she went over and bent down and said, "Do you really want Ed activating an array?"

"There is nothing even close to being coherent and complete in this house.." Roy said and picked up his coffee to take a drink. "Let alone something even a prodigy could finish in two days. He's a brilliant kid, Riza, he doesn't activate anything he hasn't gone over thoroughly. Try being a little supportive and appreciative of his talent."

Riza glared at him. He looked back up at her and frowned, words didn't even need to pass between them at all for her to communicate her message.

"Fine." He put his coffee down. Nothing said, 'Get your ass in there and stop him before he loses another limb' like the unwavering glare she was giving him right now. "Hey Fullmetal, maybe we should check your work before you fuck something up...you know like what little body you have left."

"Don't call me little, asshole."

And then there was a glow and Riza knew Roy's casual side had just done more harm than good. It had been cute, _had_ been cute that the boys were all alchemy nerds gushing and fawning over new material, but now she worried about the damage these three could do together. "Nice."

Roy stood up and dusted his pants off. "He was going to do the exact opposite of what I said anyway."

Riza walked with him to the kitchen and they both turned the corner to see Ed standing there staring at them. He looked terrified and she wanted to go over and protect him, but there was nothing to protect him from. "Ed, what's wrong?"

Roy was surprised to see Ed pale and shaking, staring past him at a stove covered in pots and pans. Riza went over and put her hands on the boy's shoulder, touched his cheek to make him look at her and Roy felt something brush up next to him. He didn't want to look away, but he had to when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Something too light to be Alphonse. Then a whisper in his ear that made all the hairs on his neck raise and his heart stop beating for a second.

"God look at her Roy, can you imagine her with your own kids?"

"Hughes?" Roy whispered and turned to look at a ghostly apparition beside him. "Are you two seeing this?"

Ed's voice cracked as Hawkeye tried to pry his eyes away from the woman in front of his eyes. "I see...my Mom."

"What?" Riza asked and looked around. Ed was paralyzed, she could feel him shaking under her touch. Roy was staring in to space beside him. There was _nobody_ there. "What are you two seeing?"

"Hughes." Roy said and watched his best friend lean against the door frame and push his glasses up his nose.

"My Mom." Ed croaked out. She wasn't like the nightmare visions he had of a half made human. She was like he wanted to remember her, vibrant and loving and smiling as she stirred a pot on the stove.

"Did you bring some friends for dinner?" Tricia asked and looked at the adults who were in the kitchen with them. "Edward, I thought I told you not to talk with strangers. Did this couple need help? Where is Al?"

Ed finally broke loose and turned around to look for Al. Where was he!? "AL! ALPHONSE!"

"You don't see him? Hughes is right next to me." Roy asked as Riza stood in the kitchen just unsure what to do as Ed screamed for his brother beside her.

"Right next to you at the alter too I hope." Maes sighed. "If you ever ask her to be your wife in this lifetime. I have my best man's speech memorized you know."

Roy looked at her and she gave him the look of 'what the hell are you talking about'. Then Ed tried to break free of her hold and screamed again in a full fledged panic.

"AL!"

"I'm right here brother." Al came through the other door from the hallway to enter the kitchen. He looked at everyone's faces and breathed a sigh of relief. "You see them too then?"

"See who?" Riza asked as Roy leaned away from something that wasn't there, Ed turned back to look at the stove and Al looked down at something beside him.

"Hughes." Roy replied.

"Mom." Ed said and watched her turn to him and smile.

"Nina and Alexander." Al looked down as Nina giggled and took his hand.

And then the room went silent as they all looked at each other and tried to comprehend what was going on. Riza looked over at Roy, disbelief on his face, and then she saw movement behind him. She drew her gun, "Sir!"

Roy spun and stepped into the kitchen, pulling out his gloves in the process. Hughes winked at him and gave him a thumbs up as he went to stand beside Riza. "You see him?"

Riza swallowed hard as a figure materialized in the doorway. She kept her gun pointed at him. "Yes. My father."

"What?" Roy asked and watched her hand tremble.

Berthold Hawkeye narrowed his eyes at his apprentice and saw the array on his gloves. "Riza, is this how he uses my research? He's preparing to defend you, with _my_ alchemy. I told you this could never be used as a weapon."

She moved closer to Roy, as scared as she was of her father in life she was more terrified of the idea that death could not contain him. How angry he would be of what Roy did with his research? What steps he would take to make sure it would never be used like that again?

"What the fuck did you do Fullmetal?" Roy asked.

"I don't know." Ed said and his Mom gave Mustang a disapproving look for his language. Then Tricia realized Hawkeye had her gun out and Mustang had an array embroidered on his gloves, striking a pose like they always did, ready to meet anything and defend them from danger. Ed felt something different now as he realized his Mom, or whatever she was, was now sacred and trying to remain still and hide in the corner. " _I know_ you're scaring her, so please...calm down."

"I felt Hughes touch me." Roy said and Ed started moving towards the stove. "Ed...we don't know what we're up against here."

"Up against your Lieutenant as usual." Hughes winked.

Ed touched Mustang's sleeve. "Just...trust me OK?"

Roy let his hand lower and looked at the poor kid who was gripping his sleeve tighter as he tried to assess the danger. Ed couldn't offer an explanation or any reasons why he should listen, he just needed him to stop scaring the woman he was staring at. "Lower your weapon, Lieutenant."

Riza hesitated. She had never drawn a gun on her father or wanted to, but she also didn't want to feel that powerlessness again like she did when he was growing up. It took a minute for her to drop her arms and holster her weapon, telling herself that she didn't rely on her gun to be her confidence.

When he finally realized no harm would come from these ghosts they were all individually seeing, Roy knelt down on one knee and examined the array on the kitchen floor. The ghosts remained at a distance, mere fixtures in the room. "Fullmetal, what part did you add to this?"

"This here." Ed said and pointed to a section by Mustang's knee. His Mom relaxed and went back to cooking.

"Is he an alchemist too Ed?" Tricia asked and looked over at the transmutation circle and give her son a proud smile.

"Yeah." Ed said and watched his Mom just glow with pride.

"Did you find a teacher?" She asked.

Ed wanted to scoff at the idea of Mustang being his teacher but he also didn't want to admit to his ghost mother that he joined the military. "He's helping me with my research."

Roy narrowed his eyes at Ed who continued to converse with his dead mother, but his voice took on a almost innocent and humble tone. Then Ed shot him a look, a pleading look, to just play along; to not seize this opportunity to destroy him as he struggled with this image of a woman who he knew was gone, but could not take the chance of disappointing. Ghosts weren't real, but these visions were. If Tricia Elric found out what her boys did, it would tear both of them apart. He looked up at Riza who was experiencing the same thing, terrified of being judged for her actions. He looked back to Ed, and softened his own voice to pay him the compliments he never voiced. "Brilliant connection to make, that this could be a projection of memories."

Ed was surprised and relieved. He also felt a flush of encouragement as Mustang decided to play along.

"Your father would be so proud." Tricia said and then looked around. "Where is Alphonse? Dinner will be ready soon."

"Right over there." Ed pointed at Al who was now seated on the ground with his own imaginary friend. "He's...using alchemy to move around Dad's old armor so he can..play with a friend of his."

"You boys are amazing." Tricia said and returned to stirring a pot on the stove.

"It's a projection of our own memories, right?" Roy nudged Ed and he nodded.

"Yeah, it was more of a hologram that formed from a memory for as long as the array was activated." Ed looked at his corrections on the circle. "I modified it so it was more like a projector of memories instead of an image made by alchemy."

"So in theory these ghosts only share the same memories we share with them." Roy asked and Ed nodded. Was he in here this whole time playing with this hologram? It was function as something that could manipulate light to create a three dimensional image of whatever he wanted. A sideshow attraction at it's core, but with enough gibberish to make it look like something tangible. Of course, Ed saw it as a puzzle and fixed it so it did work. Work without it's own power.

"Memories can be fabricated." Al said and Nina finished making him a flower crown. "We all have imaginations."

Ed looked over his shoulder at Al who placed something invisible on his head. Al struggled with figuring out exactly what _he_ was and now all his concerns were coming crashing down on him. Alchemy had just made memories into ghosts. Memories kept ghosts alive. What if he was just a fabrication? He could almost hear his little brother's thoughts and he regretted his actions all the more now. "Al..."

"Brother, just think about the ghosts we're seeing. I'm not seeing Mom, you are. She _haunts_ you, I just miss her. Nina...it haunts me I didn't see what she was trying to tell me about her Mom." Al listened to Nina giggle and clap in joy as she looked at how well the flower crown looked on him. "The circle before was just a created hologram, now it's something that none of us actually made. They just showed up."

"These poor kids." Hughes said and put his chin on the chair he was sitting on backwards. "Nobody their age should have to be questioning their existence and actions like they do."

"We've had this conversation before Hughes." Roy said and thought about what Al was saying in connection to the array he was studying. What if it was just a projection of memories, fresh and buried, that they relived in their minds? "If you really want to help me out, why don't you tell me who killed you?"

Ed whipped around and stared at Mustang who was now focused on the chair in the corner. Everyone went silent, including his Mom who looked mortified by the things Mustang kept saying.

Hughes cocked his head. " _You're_ killing me, Roy. I'm sitting here waiting on you to realize what you have right in front of you. The family you have but tell yourself you don't deserve. It kills me to watch you tear yourself apart for something that...I could leave behind me. I hate seeing you lonely and miserable. Especially when you are actually really good at this when you're not trying to chase everyone away."

"Also something you've told me before." Roy said his theory now confirmed. "Replaying memories, all of it."

"It's something you need to keep hearing. I'm not giving up on you, asshole." Maes smirked.

Roy turned to Riza. "What's your Father doing?"

Riza glanced back at Berthold who was hunched over at the kitchen table now. Watching. Scrutinizing. "Judging us."

"I _misjudged_ you." Berthold Hawkeye said as he glared at his daughter. "I raised you to be independent and yet you followed _him_ into the military."

"You didn't raise me, I raised myself." Riza snapped back and regretted it immediately. Everyone looked at her. She felt all eyes on her and realized her agitated state had allowed this outburst. "That was not a replayed memory. We never had that conversation."

Roy leaned over to Ed and whispered, "Does your Mom know about your automail?"

"She hasn't said anything..." Ed's eyes widened and he looked down and made sure his glove was still on his hand. "I can't. I know this isn't real, but I can't."

"Has she said anything that hasn't been said before?" Roy whispered.

"Well she never met you." Ed replied under his breath. "Yet she's definitely reacting to you."

"Did you ever consider what she would have said if she did?" Roy asked and Ed looked ashamed. "It's normal, I still think about what my parents would have thought about me and they've been gone twenty five years."

Ed grudgingly admitted, "Yeah, I considered it."

Roy waved Al over and he put his hands out to pet an invisible dog and little girl. He crawled over and joined in once he was sure his ghosts would not overhear them. "Have you experienced any new conversations with your friends over there?"

"She's a little kid, she just wants to play." Al said and saw Ed look guilty. "This is how we would play."

Ed pointed to where he had done his work on the floor. "I changed this part here. I think Grange was trying to create a being from memories, trying to skip the whole corporeal aspect of it and therefore avoid human transmutation. This array was incomplete and full of just fake garbage, so I...fixed it. "

"That's what I found upstairs. He wanted the spirit, the soul, since a body without a soul is just flesh not human. " Al agreed. "He wrote this all over his bedroom, they're like philosophical notes. A debate with himself on what really is life, what gives a body a spark that makes it a individual human. Since bodies are all just common elements, he figured he could just leave it out and avoid dabbling in the taboo."

"That makes sense." Ed said. "This array here is like a hologram. I modified it so it wasn't some hokey parlor trick. The theories were all here he just didn't understand how to apply it. So I changed it, now it's a projection reversal, using our eyes to send out images verses seeing things and sending them to the brain. "

"However this is more than just images, it's more than just a film being replayed. " Roy said. He could see why Ed thought it would be harmless because the basic parts of it were, just as he said, a simple light show. He thought giving it better definition would simply give the hologram a film to play.

"That's why I don't know what happened. It wasn't that complex. All it was supposed to do was make a hologram of a memory and only for as long as my hands were on the circle. I was the one controlling the memories." Ed explained. "It's why I activated it because it's not supposed to be interactive. I shouldn't be able to talk to Mom about you. Hughes shouldn't be able to touch you. Nina ...shouldn't have a dog with her. All this does is replay a memory."

Al could see how distraught Ed was about it and he knew why. He was eager to see if it worked, just to see Mom one last time. It didn't have anything to do with why they were here, but it was too tempting to ignore. So he had been working for days in the kitchen reading all these notes and work to try to figure out where Grange went wrong and he probably just overachieved and reworked the circle for a completely different theory. "This isn't why we came here though. This guy was supposed to be working on talking to ghosts and instead he's making a movie from his memories."

"I told you, part carnival sideshow." Roy said. "This is the kind of stunt you pull when you want to grab someone's attention at your state exam. This is what you show them even if its a hoax. You daze and amaze the crowd and they give you a chance to make something of it."

"Like a talking chimera." Al whispered and Ed looked at him horrified, but understanding where he was going with that. "So you think this guy is just a fraud?"

"I think this circle was just smoke and mirrors, meant to get him certification. Once he got the backing of the State for his work, he would have be allowed to do the research and it would take him in totally different direction. That is what we have seen in this house and in his file. However to get in the door he had to prove he had something and this hologram was it." Roy sat back and Ed chewed on his lip thinking about that. "What you did was take a mad man's work and turn it into something tangible in two days. This is no longer Grange's work, it's yours."

"Thanks." Ed said dryly.

"It's amazing Ed, this is not your specialty." Roy said and Ed and Al both looked at him with a little more fire in their eyes. Just the slightest encouragement was all they needed. Maes applauded in the corner and ruined the moment. "Grange was really trying to create ghosts. We have to look at the bigger picture here and see what other factors are at play. This entire house is relevant information. What I was working on in the living room was about phantom limbs. Grange had a stack of research notes and patient journals from the veterans hospital in there, they were buried in the closet. Grange used to work there, it may be what gave him the idea that something that is no longer a functional body part still maintained some ghostly connection to it's core body."

Ed absentmindedly rubbed his automail arm as his mother looked at him with a warm and happy glow. Mustang was right, the hologram was worthless. A Parlor trick. He was trying to con his way to certification so he could reap the rewards of research access and funding. So they had to go back to what they came here for, trying to understand exactly what Grange was trying to accomplish. It was time to look at the real facts. "Winry said that the high percentage of amputees that still had nerve sensation in missing limbs was what gave scientists the hope that automail would serve as a functional substitute. That the severed nerve endings still reported back to the brain, even if the connection was cut further down the lines the nerves still tried to connect. It's why complete control is still available. I remember waking up...feeling like my arm was on fire and it just wasn't there. Or that my leg was being pulled off. I felt that and it was very real pain."

"Silly boy, that's why you have to stop falling asleep in your father's study and use your bed." Tricia said. "Stop falling asleep on your arm or leaving books laying across your leg, Ed."

Ed closed his eyes. Shit. He made a mistake mentioning that and realized it too late. However Mom responded with a memory, a memory of him waking up in tears because he couldn't feel his arm because he fell asleep at the desk and woke up and panicked. He screamed and cried and she came in to see what was wrong. A memory of her telling him it would all be OK. He opened his eyes and nodded to her.

"So it's possible that what made this more real, is that our brains are tricking our nerves into feeling something that wasn't there. " Riza stepped forward and knelt down next to the boy just to put a hand on his shoulder and offer some support. She hated that the boys had gone through so much. All three alchemists leaned in closer to check certain parts of the array and she realized she might have sparked something in them.

"That's not what I activated." Ed said. "I activated an array that was supposed to reverse memories and show them like they were being projected like a film. That was not creating or destroying it was simply flipping an image, like taking pictures, having the image on a negative and then creating photos from that negative. Nothing was created or destroyed, it just changed direction. Input into output. "

"Your mind doesn't know that." Roy said. "This is playing memories, memories that you have strong emotional ties to. The memory of the limb, the memory of the person beside you, the memory of the presence of that person staring at you from other side of the room...it sticks with you. You're right, you didn't create anything, you're just taking it out of the safety of your brain that has tried to censor things from you. What you're seeing is memories unfiltered. And our brains aren't supposed to function like that so they are trying to fire off nerve endings to make sense of it."

"Shit." Ed sat back and toyed with his braid. He didn't take into account how the brain would react to these images or unknowns. That was where he screwed up! That was what made ghosts seem real after all, the brain trying to make sense of something it could not identify; Seeing things in the dark that weren't there, triggering a fight or flight reflex, triggering a self-preservation instinct.

"Edward!" Tricia chided. "Please watch your language."

"Sorry Mom." He said without thinking, then he rubbed his eyes with his hand.

Roy looked up at Hughes and realized that most of his memories involved Hughes either hanging on him or hovering around him. He was an overly affectionate and physical man, there were not many memories where he didn't touch him at least once. His brain, seeing the image of Hughes being close or his senses feeling his proximity must have filled in the sensory feelings. "So to reverse this...we need to be careful because we aren't dealing with an understandable element here. We have very little knowledge of how the brain works and right now it's trying to adapt to what it's experiencing. We can't rationalize this away."

They all fell silent as they considered that statement. Riza knew Roy was more than aware of the struggles of the psyche from his inability to ever come home from Ishval. When he woke in the middle of the night it took a lot to actually help him realize he wasn't still in the desert. The war haunted her too, but apparently not nearly as much as her father. She had been scared of him, but she didn't realize how much Roy's use of flame alchemy tied into that fear. Rationally, she knew that man was dead and could do no harm to his apprentice, but fear was not rational. There was nothing about Berthold Hawkeye that was rational. So when she looked over at him, hunched over a crusty bowl of soup, a shiver went down her spine and she knew Roy was completely right.

Al looked over as Nina hugged Alexander and it became very clear why he was seeing both of them. He knew that they were one entity at the end and wondered if subconsciously he considered them connected in death as well. He feared that maybe they were really just one entity in his mind, that reversing this process would erase all the other images and remind him of the one ghost he could not shake; the little girl who he envied for having a childhood and a Dad that was home, the pet he wasn't allowed to have, and ultimately the corruption of the one thing he believed to be honest and fair in this world, alchemy. He knew that was also the reason Ed was seeing Mom.

"I have a question." Riza said and they all turned to her, somber expressions on their faces. Alchemists scared of the unknown instead of transfixed by it. "If Ed activated the array, how did it affect all of us?"

"It's a haunted house. This is house _is_ his research." Roy said. "I bet there is a circle within the house or arrays connected to this under all the trash laying around. Ed fixed the array, he applied it to the individual instead of what Grange did which was make it a hologram. The other arrays, must have acted as a prism, pulling in the light needed for refraction. At least that's how I've seen it done before. If the prism arrays are still up it could act as an outer transmutation circle and encompassed us all."

"Sorry." Ed said and looked at the gouge marks in the floor that he had ignored earlier. Now they looked like more than areas where furniture had been dragged. They looked like lines that spread out from this array. They were perfectly placed at four parts of the circle, too perfect. Shit. He had been too eager to see if this trick worked. There was still so much of this house they had yet to explore.

"It's better this way Ed." Al said. "I don't think we would have believed you if you told us any of this, had you been the only one affected. I would have assumed you were affected by mold, or sleep deprivation...I wouldn't have understood unless I was experiencing it too."

"Let's see where these cuts in the floor lead to so we can figure out the complete array." Ed said and stood up, scared of what he might find under all of this. He needed to see the extent of the damage. "I'm pretty sure if I left it how it was instead of making it work, we would be able to leave this house and leave it all behind us."


	2. Memories

_Haunted_

Chapter 2

**Memories**

* * *

"Alright, let's get to work." Roy looked up at Hughes who had remained silent through all this. Probably because he wasn't paying attention to him. His mind was occupied so he wasn't able to project memories into this manifestation of his best friend. If these were hidden in his subconscious, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe Hughes had mentioned what he was working on or someone that he had crossed, just a sliver of information to go on so he could hunt down his killer. "So Hughes, are you sure you don't want to tell me what happened that night in the phone booth?"

Hughes pulled out a picture. "I called you to tell you all about my beautiful daughter! I got your damned voice mail instead."

Ed could see Mustang wasn't getting any answers he wanted. He wondered if he too feared memories he didn't want to see surfacing, like seeing Hughes dead under sheet somewhere. He feared his Mom would turn into that... _thing_ he had created in front of his eyes again. Just like in his nightmares. It was probably why Al refused to take his eyes of Nina for long, afraid he'd look away and return to find the chimera. He wasn't sure what Hawkeye feared, but he could tell she was on edge the entire time. The mere vision of her father was enough to upset her, where they were all tentatively thankful for one last glimpse of those they had lost. He looked down at the gouges in the worn wood floor and said, "Four lines, four of us. Do...we want to split up?"

It was a question, not a suggestion. Roy heard it in Ed's voice and he looked back to the kid to see if he was scared of being left alone or if there was something else. He was surprised that Ed was looking straight at him, waiting for him to make eye contact, and then a very subtle shift of his gaze to Hawkeye made Roy realize that the boys were all too aware of the difference between her ghost and theirs. He was going to answer but Riza answered for him.

"I think it best if we reverse this process quickly." Riza said. "Divide and conquer seems to be the best way to do that, don't you agree, sir?"

Roy was glad he wasn't looking at her, she would have given him the look that said 'stop trying to protect me and do your damned job'. "You're right Lieutenant."

Al was the next to speak, thoughtfully vocalizing what they may have all been thinking but did not want to mention to pressure anyone's findings. However seeing Hawkeye scared, seeing her edgy enough to have to be ordered to put down her gun and not shoot a ghost, made him not want to leave her. It was also possible that the fear was something they could eventually experience themselves, after they advanced past the regret and shock...once they dove deeper into memories they repressed. He didn't want to entertain the thought in case it would trigger memories to surface that would test his hypothesis, but splitting up worried him. He had seen Ed struggle with the images of the results of their failed human transmutation too many nights and _this_ wasn't a nightmare he could wake up from. "If what we are seeing is purely mental images, if it's our brains reacting to stimulus and creating a real sensation to explain this, then we have to remember that it controls the entire central nervous system. We all have certain memories we don't want to relive and I think we can remember the overwhelming emotions we had no control over. I think, we need to act quickly, because in addition to this it is taxing your brains and bodies."

Ed closed his eyes. He had done this. He put them all in danger by once again tampering with something that was too precious, too out of reach and too dangerous. Then he startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder and his eyes shot open, he was staring at Mustang who was giving him the most sincere and encouraging look.

"It's part of the scientific process Ed, we have all pushed that one step too far in the search for knowledge. What defines you as an alchemist is what you do with that result. So let's work together to fix this. You're not on this journey alone and you never will be." Roy gave him a squeeze and could tell everyone was shocked by that from him. Even Hughes who made a 'Huh' sound before saying something about 'father of the year' under his breath. "Let's get to work, everyone. Find the outer transmutation circles."

Ed stood there and watched Mustang walk into the living room again, not before swatting at the air to presumably fend off some affection from Hughes. He looked over to his Mom who was standing there glowing with pride and he realized that this had been for her. "I'll follow this line. I think I saw it go into the study."

Al could see the smile Ed tried to hide, filled with encouragement. He envied him, envied he could see Mom and maybe even feel her touch again. He looked over to Hawkeye who gave him a reassuring smile and he made sure to sound chipper and hopeful when he chose his direction. "I'll go this way. I think I saw a gouge in the floor heading back to the bathroom."

And then it was just the Hawkeyes in the kitchen, a feeling she knew too well, but still never wanted to revisit. She could feel her heart rate pick up and despite her sniper training to control her breathing and heart beats, she couldn't do anything to calm herself. Al was right, their brain was responding to the unknown and unexplained, and there was a very real threat of being scared to death if they couldn't take control of themselves again.

Berthold spoke. "I expected your children to be talented alchemists, considering the genetics, but I also thought I taught Roy better than this. I thought I taught him that there should be no activation of an array, no fickle use of alchemy, before all possible outcomes were considered and the risks weighed. The boy is just like his father, impressive in skill but with an enthusiasm that does not belong in the study of alchemy. Too eager to produce results, not for the advancement of science but for his own gratification."

Finally , something distracted her from the fear, a flush of different chemicals were sent through her body by her brain as she reacted to that. "They...are not mine but I will not have you criticize any of them or in any way try to tarnish their brilliance as alchemists. You know nothing about the boys, don't you dare judge them."

"Even if you die in this house because of it?" Berthold asked.

"Better than dying in a house dedicated to _your_ life's pursuit, something you knew was a curse and not a legacy." She said and enjoyed the feeling of anger towards the man she feared and allowed to control her own self worth. Anger at him for damaging Roy as a young alchemist who he knew had the potential to be great, but stunted his growth to hinder his advancement, all under some guise of having to prove his worth first. She hated him for what he did to Roy, hated him for how he made her the messenger for his cursed alchemy and destroyed both of their dreams of happiness. She gained the upper hand against her emotions, reminding herself that this man had so much to answer for and died before he had to answer for any of it. Finally she walked out of the kitchen on to the porch where the last line lead and she knew it would provide some insulation from this long overdue conversation. "You had no hope, you had no faith. You kept him down so he would not surpass you as the master and Roy is not that kind of man. I believe in all of them and I know they will find an answer."

"Was I not right?" Berthold asked. "My alchemy, was it not dangerous in the wrong hands? You would not be so angry at me otherwise. You did not listen to my warning."

"You made it _my_ decision, but you knew I only ever had one choice. We both knew you already chose Roy and you knew I was so isolated that I only had one person to choose. So it was you who was the coward who didn't make that final, condemning decision. You put it in my hands, _on my back,_ so I could give it to him. Don't you dare act morally superior here, not when he is and has always been better than you. We do not blame anyone but ourselves for our mistakes, which is more than I can say about you. You were in the position to do the right thing and you made sure your legacy survived, your damned alchemy, not your daughter or your apprentice. So unless you have something to contribute, don't speak to me again."

"It sounds like you do blame me."

"For neglecting your duties as a father and an alchemist." She said and began to clear away some gardening supplies in the corner where the line ended. "For not taking responsibility for what you created. Which is why you are nothing like them. All three of those alchemists out there are dedicating themselves to righting their wrongs, changing the world for the better. Which is why they are haunted by people they feel they let down and I am haunted by you, because my decision haunts me everyday. Decisions that are directly related to Flame Alchemy."

"Yet, you stand by his side in that uniform. He has made himself the Flame Alchemist, that was his decision. You made yourself his right hand, which was your decision. You enjoy the power of my alchemy whether it is being used or not. There is power in the knowledge that he can wield it. Something those boys out there see, they see the power of alchemy and that is why they do not hesitate to activate a damaging array that is someone's life's work."

"That power will right the wrongs of this country, so that future generations do not continue to bear the burden of the previous one." She said and he gave her that look that she used to fear, that look of dismissal because it was something he did not agree with.

"That is where the problem arises, when the military turns alchemy into a power for their own good instead of it being the salvation of the people." Berthold said.

"Then as an alchemist, prove yourself useful." She said and started to clear away more of the trash in the corner of the porch. "I saw a lot in my years in that haunted house of ours and just because I wasn't an alchemist doesn't mean I don't remember it or have an understanding of what it was. So if you are a figment of my imagination than I have some knowledge stored in my head of the work you did. That is how I will help them fix this."

"You're scared of me. Scared of me finding out what you did." Berthold said. "He used it to destroy, didn't he?"

She felt that fear start to creep over her as her father hovered over her and she felt a cool breeze through the window with broken glass. This is what he always did, ignored her and talked over her. Talked _at_ her and expected her to retreat and feel like her opinion didn't matter. To hell with him, because he was verbally attacking some of the most genuine alchemists she had ever met and he had no right to do so. To keep fear at bay, she had to find something else to focus on. In this situation all she had was unrealized anger, because she didn't want to let her father continue to control her after death. Right now it was an emotion that kept her in fight mode not flight and that was what she needed. "You used it to destroy _us_. The only two people who were in your life. The only two people who gave a damn about you."

* * *

"That was nice, you should do that more often." Hughes said. "Compliment him."

"We have discussed this, Hughes." Roy said. "I maintain my relationship with my subordinates the way I do because that is what protects them from the dangers that are clearly hanging over all of us."

"Still, in times like this..."

"As long as we remain at odds, Ed and I, as long as it appears I have no control over him and he does not respect or serve me, he remains safe from whatever may come down on me." Roy said and followed the line in the floor over some toppled furniture and to a pile of broken dishes and garbage. "I do not need the people who fear me worrying that I have allied myself with one of the most powerful and brilliant alchemists in the country. It's what got you killed."

"You keep saying that, like you want me to tell you I blame you." Hughes said and sat down on an end table. "I don't. "

Roy wasn't sure if that was a memory of him telling him why he keeps his distance or if it was wishful thinking and he was finally talking about his murder. "If you want to help me, refresh my memory about Grange. The whole reason these two have that file was it was in your paperwork from your office. Sheska worked for you and memorized the whole damned thing. Grange was court-martialed for experimenting with his patients at the veterans hospital, wasn't he? You never told me a name, you told me about the incident as someone on the State Alchemist board thought his research proposal was backed with fact and not at all theoretical. We talked about this over drinks, vague enough that you weren't giving me any classified information but still enough to make me understand why this unnerved you. Why do you need to drink after work that day?"

"I interviewed his patients. The amputees. The soldiers who thought they were in clinical trials for a new form of automail. Veterans who got a pitiful compensation bonus at discharge for lost limbs, a shitty pension and no hope of actually saving enough money for automail to resume a normal life. They thought...their country was finally coming through for them." Maes said and took a deep breath. "Roy, he did experiments and several of those men killed themselves because there was nothing anyone could do to stop the pain. The court-martial stripped him of his job at the hospital but nothing else. The military was more upset about him not going through proper channels and transferring to a research facility, than it was about him using his military funded job to work on his application for state certification."

Roy could remember how shaken Hughes was. Hughes. A man who was incredible at compartmentalization and putting on a optimistic facade to carry on with his work. He had interviewed those soldiers and they struck a nerve. Men he had served with, men that reminded him that Ed was a double amputee. It became personal. "If Sheska gave them this information than the results of the court-martial never made it into that folder...or the folder never made it back to your office with the results of your findings. She just reviewed the information for you so you could determine if he was violating military rules. You did the rest. You determined he should be court-martialled. A civilian contractor."

"I didn't want her seeing my interviews. Or the pictures I took." Maes said. "Especially because I couldn't get justice for those he hurt. And yeah, you know it was bad if I went after a civilian contractor."

Roy started moving books and stacks of newspapers. "Was he a mad scientist or was he triggered by something?"

"His wife died." Hughes said. "She was all he had. He snapped. Wanted her back."

"Another reason you needed a few drinks after that." Roy turned and looked at his best friend. It was one of the rare times he asked for support, he was always the strong one. Always.

"The military was more offended Grange was using their guinea pigs for his own purposes." Hughes scoffed. "He filed for Certification because he wanted to have better research facilities and subjects otherwise we would have never known what he was doing to those men. Our army has no use for broken soldiers. It's a terrible system, not much care for those people they can't use anymore. Like dairy cows going to slaughter after they can't produce. I got the feeling they were just cutting him loose so he could fall off the radar. See if he used his free time to make something of his research or just wither up and go mad."

"Grange made a hologram, of his wife, I presume." Roy said. "Using memories."

"If Ed had to fix it, than it didn't work." Maes reminded him.

An answer or a deflection? This wasn't something they had talked about that night so this ghost Hughes wouldn't be able to answer that. "No, it worked. It worked as a hologram, something those old bastards on the exam board probably thought was neat. It allowed Grange to stay long enough for them to hear him out, see what he planned to do with this magic trick. Knowing who is on that board, they saw it as a potential weapon. Having an alchemist in the field who could create a hologram army and deceive the enemy, I bet they got pretty excited. Then they actually read his application and found out he wanted to talk to dead people. We both know how dangerous that could be...a dead man able to tell his final moments to someone so they could avenge his death."

Maes tilted his head. "Is that what you would do, avenge me? You never used your alchemy out of desire to destroy, would you become that man to punish the person who took my life? That's not why I swore to help you to the top. That makes you just as bad as Bradley."

"Just because my heart wasn't in it doesn't excuse me from what I did." Roy went back to digging through piles of trash and used tissues on the floor. "I want answers. I want someone to answer for what they did to you."

"So what are we really looking for here? What can this alchemist offer any of you other than maybe a better understanding of why you should leave the dead where they belong?" Maes asked and followed Roy over to the corner.

"In all honesty, I don't think any of us have a very clear idea of what Grange did." Roy said. "We made some connections and Ed made alterations, but every alchemist thinks differently. Especially one driven mad with obsession. I think Grange was able to make a temporary projection when he activated the circle. I think Ed altered it so it was more permanent. I didn't want to say that in there because it sounds awful."

"Nice job back there." Maes said. "Feels good to see him look at you like that, doesn't it? Instead of wanting to punch you in the face? It's nice to talk about alchemy as equals?"

"Hughes, I could very well be joining you in death really soon because my brain is overheating trying to keep this projector running." Roy said and cleared off the circle in the corner. "And thankfully Grange was as much of a mess as his notes indicate he was or you and I would be having this conversation face to face already. "

"Yeah? What does this say?"

"I have no idea what this is about, it will take me a while to figure it out. It's probably an application of his phantom limb research. However it is contained in a circle, within a circle, the outer edge here is all about applying that hologram to this array. He's skipping a step, using his memories to make sure the image of what he wants is applied to the transmutation he is creating, instead of creating it in that image. I was wrong, this isn't a prism."

* * *

"This isn't a prism." Ed said as he uncovered the circle in the corner of the study. No wonder he missed it, it was under the damned desk!"Grange just wasn't able to do something as complex as human transmutation so he broke it up into parts. The outer circle just allows the energy from each array to go to another so he can power up each part individually. This guy had no idea what he was doing. It's the alchemy equivalent of counting on your fingers."

Tricia looked around the study and sighed. "I never understood how an alchemist could work in such a disorganized mess."

"Mom, it's not a mess, everything is piled in a very specific order. Just like the transmutation." Ed turned to her. "Alchemy is really about a lot of reactions. On the basic level it's a bout a simple chemical reaction. You have to break apart the bonds of those elements in order to reshape the object. You can not create or destroy, just reshape. However you have to understand how elements react, how much energy it takes to break the bonds and then forge new ones. In complex transmutations you have half the periodic table to juggle not just one element changing state from solid to gas."

"I'm so proud of you." She said. "Your father would be too."

"I didn't learn alchemy to be like him." Ed said hotly. "I did it because it made you happy, because alchemy was all you had left of him that was tangible. All he is... is memories...memories of making you cry because you missed him. Memories of you looking out the window to see if he was coming home. Memories of you seeing him in us. Mom, you deserved more than memories. You deserved to see life instead of just what was missing from it."

"Ed, I just wanted you to have a father especially when I saw how much you took after him." She said. "Especially when I see how nice this couple is and how that teacher of yours encourages you and talks with you about what you boys love. I wanted to be that person but I couldn't be."

Ed bit his lip. He wasn't going to correct her on Mustang and Hawkeye being a couple or that Mustang was his teacher. He was just going to write this off as a memory he wished he had when they were staying with the Curtis's, because he did fabricate a lot of memories in those days. "You were great Mom. We just wished you could be happier."

"I was afraid you would forget him." She said. "I didn't want you to forget your father, he loved you very much. I couldn't help but see him in you, because it made my memories real again. The way you and Al spent all your time in his books. The smiles on your face when you made something."

Ed looked at the desk and saw a wedding picture of Grange and his wife. The reason he had done all this was to just have her in his life again. He identified with that and it scared him because this house of research brought back memories of his own. Desperation, the same reason he had come here. Desperation to fix their first mistake and now here he was compounding it with another. A mistake, he had to admit he was enjoying. Talking to Mom again, hearing her tell him how proud she was, and always, it was ruined by her talking about Dad. "You remember the best of him. I remember that he left us."

"Maybe you should remember when he showed you his book and his work." She said and looked at the drawing on the wall. "It looked a little like that didn't it?"

Ed looked over at what she was talking about and froze in place. It was a drawing that struck a very uncanny resemblance to the Gate of Truth. "He never...showed me that."

"Yes he did." She said. "It was when he was teaching you about the basics of alchemy. The laws. How you can transmute non living matter and not living because that was breaking the laws of this world. It was playing God and those who tried it would see something like this. And meet God. "

"Dad...never showed me this." Ed stammered.

"I yelled at him for scaring you like that." She said. "He said it was absolutely necessary to tell you the limits of alchemy and the punishment for going beyond it before he ever taught you anything. You were so little, you probably don't remember."

Ed tried to calm himself. His mother, talking about the Gate. His mother talking about the limits of alchemy and the punishment for playing God. His mother telling him about a memory he didn't have. He almost wished he wasn't alone in here right now. He almost wanted to run into the other room and drag Al in here to see if he could make sense of this. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself, just like after his nightmares. He couldn't think if he was panicking like this. "Mom, I never talked about that with Dad."

"Then how else would I know about it?" She asked.

Ed felt her touch and let loose a cry of fear before he opened his eyes and saw her looking at him concerned. Not an inhuman monstrosity. Just Mom. Just Ghost Mom who was a projection of his memories. She wasn't making this up, either he was or it was buried somewhere in the back of his mind. "Why would Dad know about the Gate of Truth?"

"I'm sure it's in these books somewhere." She said.

"No, that's not something that an alchemist would care about. Some mythical gate, it sounds like religious warning. Like some myth used to scare people away from the taboo. Alchemists don't talk like that. We deal in fact. We see things like rumors of the Gate and the cost of performing human transmutation as a way to scare us from being too powerful...and we take it as a challenge. We all think that we're better than those who went before us and that the rules don't apply to us." Ed knew that that was exactly how they thought back then. They thought they knew _so_ much.

"He was trying to scare you, Ed. He wanted to make sure you understood that there were responsibility to being an alchemist."

Ed walked over and looked at the drawing, something he didn't see before. Something he just looked past because there were books and notes in this room more enticing. However it was a drawing of the Gate, the pillars and lintel was the same but not the etchings on the doors. The doors had a different design than the one he had seen. He took down the picture and opened up the back to pull out the actual sheet it was drawn on and found out it was a page from a book. Not a religious book, a published book on alchemy that they had never been able to get their hands on. "This is from a book on human transmutation."

"It didn't look _quite_ like that." She said looking over his shoulder. "He drew it himself. Your father. He was drawing it when you came up and wanted to draw with him."

This got better and better. Ed's fear faded away as he struggled to locate the memory that was being replayed by his ghost Mom. Did it really really happen as she was saying or was this a distortion of his own memory of the gate? He looked at the page and then turned to her. It was time to play Mustang's game and start using these memories against themselves. "So, if he drew his own version, that means he saw it himself."

"Your father traveled a lot." She said. "He said he saw things before they had crumbled into the ruins they were now. He would tell me, and you boys, stories about some amazing lands and the past. He had done a lot of research and traveled quite a bit to do so. You boys do take after him."

"The only way he could see this is if he did human transmutation." Ed said and saw something on his mother's face that he wasn't expecting. Shock? No. He expected that. It was almost as if he stumbled on a secret that he wasn't supposed to find out. "Mom...did he?"

"He was just trying to teach you a lesson about how dangerous alchemy could be. I'm sure he found out about it the same way you did." She said and looked up at the clock. "Oh, it's time for lunch. Why don't you and Al get cleaned up while I make you something to eat?"

Ed stood there and felt the chills again, but not from fear. He wasn't sure if it was her words or the fact that she always changed the subject to food when he asked an uncomfortable question she didn't want to answer. A question that was usually about his father.

* * *

"Great, I get the room with Grange's work on souls, theories on philosopher's stones and the conservation of energy. " Al said and Nina climbed in the bathtub with Alexander to start playing with a sponge.

"What's that?" Nina asked and started to pretend wash Alexander.

"It says that matter can not be created or destroyed, only change form." Al said and wondered why Grange had to do this work on the toilet. Books were stacked up on the back of it and on the sink, notes were written on the walls and in the shower and mildew indicated that cleaning was ignored to keep notes preserved. He picked up the bath rug and found a transmutation circle. It looked like soap residue was what made it so he was careful not to shuffle across it and ruin anything.

"Oh, I remember Daddy telling me about that." Nina said.

Al had hoped that, since these were his memories, that he would only have to deal with Nina's interactions with him and not her father. However, in their time at Tucker's house, they had plenty of conversations with her Dad about alchemy. So naturally, it had to be available for their conversations.

"So, what is a soul? Is it energy?"

 _It's something your father didn't have._ Al sat on the toilet and tried to spare Ghost Nina some of his thoughts about her Dad. "I think a soul is more than that. Energy can't love people, it can't make decisions humans do. It's something I've thought about a lot Nina, because energy can move a suit of armor around but it can't care about people like I do. So I think a soul is more than that, it's what makes people complicated and makes us think about what our actions can do to others. "

"You think Alexander has a soul?"

"Yeah I do." Al said. He looked at the transmutation circle on the ground and noticed it wasn't what he expected it to be. "Well I don't think souls are holograms either and this isn't a prism."

"That's like when rain makes a rainbow!" She said and started to draw on the wall of the shower with some lipstick.

Al wondered if the lipstick was there before, if it has been Mrs. Grange's or Mrs. Tuckers. He didn't want to concentrate on that. He looked down and said. "Yeah, you really absorbed everything didn't you?"

"I did! I want to be just like you and big brother Ed when I grow up!" She said. "An alchemist so I can help Daddy with all his work."

And that ruined the memory. Al looked at the transmutation circle. "Well you're helping me figure this out. You can be my apprentice."

"Yay!"

"I'm sure Ed and the Colonel have already figured out this is not a prism, that it's more like a bunch of ingredients to a cake. If you put them all in small dishes so you can work on them one at a time and get the whole cake later." Al said. "All it does it connect each array to each other. Mr. Grange must have spent a lot of time carving holes in the baseboards and walls to make sure to all connected on a perfect circle. Probably why this place is condemned."

"Work work work." Nina said. "All Daddy used to do, cause he was scared they would take his job away."

"So let's see what he was working on." Al said and opened up a journal from the basket next to the toilet to avoid talking about Tucker's work. This was his memory and he was going to control it one way or another. Talking with Nina had always been easy, he was always honest with her and in turn was honest with himself. "Grange though that souls were energy. So ghosts were just the lingering souls after death, energy that hadn't been used up and converted into something else. There are stories of people brought back to life after the heart stops. Of haunted houses. Of souls attached to bodies of armor. The body is not necessary to keep a soul...alive. So it's it's own energy force, what operates the body."

"Confusing." Nina said and giggled as Alexander licked her.

"Kind of is." Al said. "I think about it a lot. Nothing can be created nor destroyed and only change form, that is equivalent exchange. However, the reason alchemists can't bring people back to life is because there is nothing we can give in exchange for a priceless soul. Which is why an uneven exchange results in a rebound and...well someone losing a few limbs or a body. "

"So what is the answer?" She asked. "What is a soul then?"

"Nobody can answer that, only guess." Al said. "I can't alter how I think or feel unless I manipulate the chemicals that are in the body. I don't have a body so these feelings I have have to be more than just chemicals. I get sad, I feel scared, I have hope and I can think. I don't have a body though, so I really can't _feel_ anything. Do you think I'm real?"

"Of course!"

"I think you are..." _but you're not_. Al leaned back and wondered if memories were all he really was running on. Memories of how it felt to be scared or love people. However he kept moving forward, not replaying the past, so he had to be more than just a film of his life until that day he lost his body. He didn't have a brain, he had no explanation as to why this memory was real for him. Ed had tampered with the way the lens of the eye sees things, he reversed the feed and everything that was happening was because the brain was trying to make something of the confusion. That theory made perfect sense. Science backed it up. However, his part in all this tore that theory to shreds. He didn't have a lens in his eye, a brain, or chemicals. He had no where to even store memories. It gave him hope. "I am in this body, my soul teetered to it by a blood seal. I am the projection of my self...my body and brain and everything. I'm able to communicate through my blood seal I'm not contained in it."

"Like a telephone?" Nina asked.

"I guess it could be like that." Al said. There was something simple about Nina, something so childlike and uncomplicated that had made it so easy to talk about things with her. They loved hearing her responses to their work, they loved seeing the world like a real child. Something that neither he, or Ed, could really say they understood. They had always seen the world as alchemists. A blessing and a curse. "So that means that my body is on the other end of the line somewhere."

"We should go find it!"

"That's why we came to this man's house." Al said. Before they got derailed and had to confront ghosts of their own. "Because we thought he could communicate with the dead."

"Can he?"

"I think that he made it to the part where he tried to figure out what a soul was...and went crazy." Al said. The notes were as bad as the ones upstairs. Contradicting views of what a soul was. Physics said energy, religion said a spirit. "When you don't know what you're looking for you can't make it. That's a law of alchemy. You have end up with the same mass you started with. You have to use water to make something water based. You can't make something out of nothing so Grange had to figure out what a soul was to try and use it for something. He had to figure out where it went to try and put it back in a body. I think he was trying to...make a body and call the soul back to it with his memories. Like it is just out there floating around lost and looking for a place to call home again. More like electricity where it follows the path of least resistance, the body gives a soul something to latch on to. It's why people who die and have near death experiences say they were being draw to the light, because it was a place where the energy has no resistance."

"So did you figure out where you can find you body?"

Al stood up. "No, I'm just worried that this guys didn't understand the cost of trying to bring back someone he loved."

"Al!"

He got up and stepped out of the bathroom and saw Ed was standing there waving some artwork. "Ed, I don't think this guy was aware of what he was trying to do."

"Well I sure as hell am!" Ed said and pointed to the study. "He was trying to make a Gate."

"Huh?" Al asked, not following what he was talking about. He had just come to a rather comforting realization while talking to Nina and was still a little more focused on that.

" _The_ gate." Ed said and held up the picture from the wall. "The Gate of Truth. He was trying to make one so he could open it up and take out the soul he wanted. It's what killed him, I think, because the way he was trying to access it was by using his own life energy to power this circle. In effect pushing himself to the brink of death so he could see this other dimension. I think he just pushed too far."

"Who _was_ this guy?" Al asked. This was all way too much research in different fields to be just one man's work.

* * *

"Oh...my god." Riza said loudly when she finally moved all the shattered pots and soil from the corner of the porch, careful to not sweep across the circle that was drawn in agricultural lime.

"Human transmutation." Berthold said as he looked at it. "Not in the most common definition. This is meant to create a human, circumvent the laws of equivalent exchange by creating a body without organs or systems, an artificial human that is more like a plant. A body feeding on carbon dioxide, water and sunlight so it doesn't have to be maintained. A host for a parasite, a soul."

Riza looked at him. This was a memory of her father, a lifelong alchemist. She didn't know this but at some point she must have overheard him. This could have been one of his lectures to Roy perhaps?

"Once the original body is gone, the compatibility for soul to body is impossible to achieve again. Each human is unique in that they can only attach to one host, when that host dies the soul can no longer be bound to it for any length of time. Human Transmutation is therefore impossible because no alchemist can be that detailed, but creating an inviting and compatible host body may not be. Binding the soul however, does...require a heavy price."

Riza started at it and then looked at him as he stood over the circle. Was she projecting information from the Elrics and Roy onto him or was this something from her memories? It sounded like her father, but alchemists entranced by theories and research could all rattle off information like a telegram. Speaking in facts, factually telling of their rationalizations. Even if he wasn't sure of the facts he spoke them with conviction, that was her father's way. However Ed, Al and Roy all valued life, they understood the value of a soul. They would never call it a parasite. Her father however, "You..."

"I wanted your mother back." He said. "She was my life, I died with her. I wanted to be with her, one way or another."

And a clear memory returned of finding him in the garden, a circle drawn out in the dirt, blood all over the ground and him lying unconscious in the middle of it. She had rolled him onto a board, used a come along to get him in the house, then left him in the kitchen beside the stove to warm up while she went to get the doctor. "You died of Tuberculosis."

"An affliction of the lungs, Flame alchemy is oxygen manipulation." He said. "My life's work and it meant more to me than the life I had. So it was taken from me, to pay for what I tried to do. I completed my research, but was unable to preform the alchemy required because my lungs required the oxygen needed to do it. A cruel bargain. I needed to increase oxygen in my vicinity to give myself the breathing ability to do something so taxing, which made me the most flammable point if I were to add a spark and ignite it. I had no strength to manipulate it from me. My life's work complete and useless."

"You died of tuberculosis." She repeated and remembered the doctor telling her his prognosis after he had helped her lift her father into his bed.

"If that was the case why were you not infected?" He asked. "Or Roy? It's contagious, spread by coughing. It's airborne. You lived in that house with me, an old house with poor ventilation. He visited me on my last day. I never had it. I died because I tried to bring back your mother."

"You never studied human transmutation." She said, but was not confident in that statement. He studied a lot of things and not all of it was oxygen or flame alchemy related. She also avoided him as best she could after he gave her his research.

"It's not a hard thing for an alchemist to comprehend." He said. "Which should have been an indicator it would never work, because it was too simple of an answer for a complex being. You know I worked on it or else you wouldn't have recognized this work. You saw it in the garden that day, you tried to understand what I did."

"Then why wait for years to do this?" She said realizing that was the truth of it all. He wasn't a real ghost, he was her memories talking back to her.

"I was a terrible father, but at least I didn't leave you alone. I promised your mother that. You had grown up, my research was complete, there was only one thing left for me to do." Berthold stared at the floor.

"Yes, your research." She said as it dawned on her now why he chose his method for recording it. "That's why you put it on me, because you knew once I left the house would be seen as a incubator for the disease. You knew if I left, I'd leave your damned research and someone would burn that house to the ground to contain the disease."

"I was right, wasn't I?" He asked.

"It's always about you being proven right, wasn't it?" She knocked a pot over and took a deep breath. "Proven right that flame alchemy was capable of so much destruction in the wrong hands. Proven right that human transmutation would fail and end your life that you were incapable of living without your cause."

"Riza?" Roy's concerned voice hailed her from the kitchen after hearing the pot smash.

"I'm out here." She said as Roy materialized in the doorway, concern written all over his face.

"Are you alright?" He asked and she went over to the circle on the floor and he followed her. He looked at it and saw some familiar things and was about to comment when she spoke.

"It's human transmutation." She said. "According to my father."

Roy was quick to catch on to that last detail. "Are you sure you aren't attributing some prior knowledge to this conversation with him?"

"I've seen this before, something similar."

Roy nodded, because she had been there with him when they went into the Elric's home. She had seen Ed and Al's notes. She had been there beside him at Hughes's grave when he talked about doing it himself.

"My father made his own in the garden at our house." She said. "So that the rain could wash it away before I could copy it and find out what he did. So he could cover up his shame of doing something wrong, because he refused to be remembered as anything but Master Hawkeye, creator of Flame Alchemy. He died because of it."

"I thought you said it was Tb?" He said. "You refused to let me in the house until I told you I had been vaccinated by the army for it. He died in my arms after coughing up blood everywhere."

"Lungs were his toll." She said. "Because an alchemist who manipulated oxygen couldn't do so without robbing himself of the breath he needed."

"Shit." Roy said and then grabbed her hand. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"The doctor assured me it was tuberculosis. I was scared because I didn't want to be next, I knew he was dying and I didn't know what to do once he was dead. I forgot about that circle until now, because he brought it up. At the time I was just struggling with trying to manage my dying father and not knowing what to do with my life. Not knowing what I could do because he had permanently scarred me with his damned research. I didn't care, honestly, because he was dead and I didn't want to relive any of it."

Roy squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like you were hiding it from me."

"I know, I was hiding it from myself." She said. "Truth be told, I wasn't upset he was dying. I knew I was finally going to be free of him if his disease didn't kill me first. He swore I was vaccinated as a kid, that my Mom made sure of it. I believed him. It wasn't until I applied to the academy and they did the skin test that I found out I was never exposed, never vaccinated. I never said anything because I didn't want to fail my physical and ruin my chances at getting in."

"Did he try to bring back your Mom?"

"Yeah." She said. "I must have known what he was working on if this is coming out now. He finished his research, he tattooed it on me because it was finished, but he kept working on something. I must have known, but I avoided him as best I could considering..."

"It was the only way, Riza." Berthold said. "To keep the family secret safe."

"Shut up." She snapped. "It was nothing but your insane need to made sure I couldn't destroy everything about you unless I destroyed myself. Nothing more than that."

Roy pulled her over to him, not caring who or what saw. He kissed her head and held her for a minute. He whispered softly, "He's dead. It doesn't matter now."

"I knew it." Maes said from the doorway. "I can die happy now."

Roy let her go and looked down at the circle, Hughes ruining the moment again. He studied the circle and although it was at the core about human transmutation, the materials were not human. It wasn't going to make a functioning human body. "This isn't human transmutation in the sense of bring back someone from the dead, this is about creating a homunculus...out of vegetables? Or plant matter, I guess, so Grange could circumvent having to figure out how to keep the body alive while it didn't have brain power or a soul to tell it to breathe and the heart to beat."

"Who was this guy?" Riza asked. "Was Grange really this good? Was he really able to work on so many different specialties at once like this?"

"He was a medical researcher, and the living room is his den of research. Not this. There is not near enough information out here to indicate the level of advancement needed to make an artificial human or plant." Roy said. "Let's see what the boys have come up with because I'm pretty sure they'll have similar findings."

"Which are?" Riza asked.

"This is not his research." Roy said with a shake of his head. "The phantom limbs, yes. This is not the same guy who tortured amputees."

"He did what?" Riza said and he gave her an apologetic look. "Why didn't you say something before we came here?"

"I didn't remember." Roy shook his head. "I didn't make the connection until not that long ago. Hughes has been helpful in allowing me to access some memories I didn't think were pertinent."

"Colonel!" 

Riza followed Roy back into the kitchen as Ed and Al came through the other door. She could see it on their faces, the realization that non of this could have come from the same man.


	3. Truth

_Haunted_

Chapter 3

**Truth**

* * *

"Who the hell was this guy?" Ed demanded. "The guy who made this hologram is not the same guy who is capable of the kind of research I found. Nothing in this house makes sense. Not unless there were other people living here with him."

"Leonard Grange was an independent contractor employed by the department of veterans affairs." Roy said. "He was a medical researcher and if he was that good he wouldn't have been working at the veteran's hospital, he would have been working somewhere better."

"I don't understand." Ed said. "Why does that indicate he was shitty at his job?"

"Because our government doesn't give a damn about soldiers it can't use for anything." Roy said and the boys reacted as he expected, shocked and then angry. "So Grange used his job to do experiments, to work on his research for his phantom limb theory, and nobody would have known had he not submitted the data as part of his certification application. That was why he was court-martialled. That was why his file was in the office where Sheska could read it, because Hughes had done the investigation and filed the charges against him."

"He was a civilian, you can't court martial a civilian." Al said.

"Civilian contractors are employed by the military and fall under the same rules and regulations as military personnel." Riza informed him.

"We live in a military state." Roy said. "The military controls a lot it shouldn't."

"So Hughes...arrested this guy?" Ed asked. Then it dawned on him that Mustang might have held back information, as usual, and he stepped forward and with a balled fist growled. "You _talked_ with Hughes about this? You knew what we were walking into?"

"Edward!" Tricia hollered. "Temper!"

"In life, he was a lot more vague about it. " Roy explained as Ed calmed down before he could say anything. He guessed that his Ghost mother was working her magic. "I never got a name or anything other than the broad summary of the case, but he was worked up about it. Slipped more information than I realized which ghost Hughes was more than happy to help me recall."

"You're welcome." Hughes said. "Consider it paid in full for letting me see you and Riza like that."

"In the office, something about this file bothered me. Something, I just couldn't put my finger on. I wasn't trying to hide anything from you Ed, I just didn't remember." Roy ignored Hughes and concentrated on Ed, who was also having to modify his behavior because of a ghost. "I didn't realize it was the same case until I went through all the research in the living room with Hughes next to me. Grange's real research. I was wrong about the hologram and prisms, the hologram was only meant to be smoke and mirrors for the Certification board. His real work was in that room there. He hid the real work under piles of trash and left that hologram in the open as a red herring."

"What happened to him?" Al asked. "Why was he able to come back here if he was tried for doing awful experiments? Was that what would have happened to Mr. Tucker if Scar didn't come along? Because his research showed promise?"

Ed felt angry now. Angry at a government who failed to punish it's scientists for doing terrible things because they wanted to take advantage of their madness. Angry because it was no coincidence all this work was left here for someone else to stumble upon. "That's the only reason. They wanted what he could create so they ignored the atrocities and gave him what he needed; someone else's research. Research on how to make a gate."

"Theories on souls and how to create a conduit for their energy to flow back from the gate to a body they are drawn to." Al added. "That the soul was the energy force and without it a body could not be powered."

"How to create a body to host that soul." Riza contributed her own findings and the boys both reacted knowing what that meant.

"And ultimately how to use his own memories to project a warm and welcoming place for that soul, to use the feeling of what used to be there to made it feel like home again. The sensation of being complete." Roy said. "Incredible."

"How did this guy end up back here?" Ed demanded. "Why was he free? Why did he get help to continue down this path?"

Roy sighed. "His application was denied because he didn't have any of this. He had a hologram to fake the usefulness of his findings, his research he didn't know how to apply to anything. Then Hughes opened up an investigation, found out how he got his findings and court-martialled him expecting him to be locked up. Instead he was terminated and came home to an empty house and plenty of time to work on his theories. Hughes was appalled. You only got Sheska's information because he never told her what came of any of it. She only researched Grange the man, the man who wanted to talk to the dead. Hughes got to see Grange the alchemist and it was bad enough he drank the memories away with me."

"Was that what was going to happen to Tucker?" Al asked. Nina was beside him, he couldn't stop relating all this to her. "Arrested, tried and given what he needed to keep making more chimera? Has his research been given to someone else to complete?"

"He was going to be taken into custody and tried." Roy said, he didn't have those answers. "After that...people disappear."

"Into places like labs! Like labs where Barry and the Slicer Brothers were turned into experiments!" Ed shouted and looked down at the floor. He was yelling but Mustang knew it wasn't _at_ him, it was at the injustice of it all. "Why wasn't he in a lab? That doesn't make sense."

"This is what fueled him." Roy said. "Losing his wife. Coming home to an empty house. They needed him desperate, wanting to try anything. In the end I think he was the experiment. Same reason Tucker was pressured with deadlines and the threat of losing his license, to get results. Desperate alchemists with nothing to lose yield the best results because they are not afraid to take risks. "

"Who are _they_?" Al asked.

"Whoever pulls the strings above us." Roy said and looked at Hughes. "The people who silenced Hughes for what he found."

"Roy, you better be careful nobody is going to do the same to you for what you found here." Hughes cautioned.

"Look, what I found in the study isn't just someone's theories, it's someone who _did_ what we did and went beyond that Gate." Ed looked at Al. "And worse, I might have found out that I have memories of Dad researching that."

"What?" Al asked.

"Mom, talked to me about things I don't remember. She said she recognized the drawings in the room because Dad was drawing something similar. She said he told me about the punishment for breaking the rules of alchemy." Ed said and took his glove off and turned to the woman sitting at the table. Finally he was desperate enough to confront her about his biggest mistake. "I know what that Gate is because I did human transmutation, not because Dad told me about it."

"Ed, you're a smart boy, you wouldn't do that even if it was to defy your father." Tricia said and backed away to show him she made sandwiches. "Lunch is ready."

Ed looked down at the circle on the floor, a hoax. A light show. A snare. It did it's job.

"I think we're all getting distracted from the real issue here." Riza said. "What about getting rid of these ghosts we're seeing? Or do you no longer want to because they are answering questions you didn't know you had answers to?"

"The Lieutenant raises a good point. We have more pressing issues than making sense of this man's work especially now that we know this is not his work. I don't feel that his findings are reliable, that's why he was set off to the side to work. A man like this who has lost touch with reality can contaminate a workplace and ruin legitimate research quickly." Roy put his hands in his pockets. "I was wrong about the hologram, it was only made so he could get past the door at the exam. He wasn't planning on creating an image of his wife to follow him around the house. It's all contained inside a transmutation circle because he understood his limitations and was scared of what he might do. This wasn't his research, he had no confidence in activating it. If it worked, he was going to come to this spot, activate his hologram and then trigger a reaction on the circle, each part completing as he could manage it. His memories, applied to his research on lost body parts, then to..."

"Opening the gate." Ed said. Since it had been passed on to him by someone who had done it before, it was already verified research.

"Pulling her soul through because it would be attracted to her memories, attracted to her life." Al said. The circle he saw was very much about extracting a soul, the theories in the notes only applied it to the phantom limb work. That was someone else's circle.

"And finally completing the circle by putting it all in a vessel. A homunculus body." Riza said and the boys took that all in. The question was, who was working on making homunculus bodies that were not functioning humans? If it was the military the implications were frightening.

"And that brings us full circle by returning to this array." Roy said. "You can reverse it without setting off anything else."

"Colonel, we can't just ignore what we've found." Ed said. "Especially if someone put Grange up to this. _Especially_ if someone is taking this and giving it to someone else."

"Fullmetal, our biggest concern right now is turning off the projector." Roy pointed to the circle. "That is the imminent threat."

"I think we've all rationally come to terms with the fact that these memories are not ghosts." Riza added to ease Ed's worry about any ill affects of what he might do.

Al looked down at his brother. "Even if we can't determine if the memories or real or made up. We have answers we didn't have before we came here. We have a lot to think about."

"You think we're at peace with these ghosts now?" Ed asked. "So our brains will let them rest when I take the images away?"

"We're all haunted by something." Riza said. "I think we all have doubts about what unexplained memories are...if they are real or just dreams."

"It's guilt." Roy said. "The people we couldn't save. Our mistakes. It's part of us, it's consuming and sucks away the joy from our memories and uses them against us. We all rationally know that they wouldn't blame us, but we can't accept that because it's easier than accepting that life is not fair and terrible things happen to good people. Someone has to be to blame, because it's the only way it makes sense. Human nature."

"We came here to talk to the dead." Al said. "We got what we wished for."

"Al, I wanted to connect to your body." Ed said and looked up at his little brother. "Instead we've been stuck here for days working on everything else. Worse, if Grange was let go and given this information to work out, than there is probably someone watching this place. I've put us all in danger coming here, from what I did with alchemy and out of desperation to find a lead."

"We both wanted to come here, brother." Al reminded him. "It's not for nothing. I really do believe my body is out there somewhere now, because I am what proves a lot of these theories true."

"We should go before we get too comfortable here." Ed knelt down on the floor and looked up at everyone around him. He quickly made some alterations to the circle to reverse the process. "Say your goodbyes then?"

"Something I never got to do before." Roy said and gave Ed a smile before looking to Hughes. He didn't care who heard him, he wasn't going to miss the opportunity to talk to him one last time even if it wasn't real. "I miss you, Maes. I'll find out who is responsible for all this and I will keep your family safe."

"I'm not going anywhere, Roy. I'm still with you." Maes said and straightened up to give his best friend a salute. "I'll see you to the top, Roy. Nothing can stop me from doing that, not even death."

Roy snapped a salute and Riza looked to her father who lurked in the corner. She wanted to be cruel and not acknowledge him at all, like he had done to her during her childhood, but instead she realized she was no longer the scared girl looking for her place in this world. She was leaving now, on her terms, not because she didn't know what to do without him. She was closing the door and this chapter on her life. "Goodbye, Father."

"I asked him to look after you." Berthold said. "In my dying breath."

"I know." She said. "I was listening outside the door."

"You still chose him, he still made sure you always had the choice." Berthold nodded. "He was the right choice."

Al turned and sat down next to Nina and Alexander. "You two should go out and play now, someday I'll see you again."

"You have other people to protect, Big Brother Al!" Nina hugged him. "We understand!"

"I try." Al replied. "You helped me a lot though! I couldn't have done it without my apprentice."

"Mom?" Ed took a deep breath and realized that he was going to be glad they all went back to normal after they left this place. It meant they never had to talk about this, they could pretend it never happened. Just like Mustang though, he never got to say goodbye. "I guess this is goodbye."

"Are you leaving with your teacher?" She asked.

"Yeah, Al and I are on a mission. We're doing research, helping people with alchemy." Ed said and waited for it.

"Just like your Dad." She said and bent down to pet his head.

Ed felt it, her soft touch. The warm smile. He wasn't going to ruin the moment by saying something about Dad. His father made her so happy, who was he to take that from her? He forgot that she was more than his mother, she was a loving wife and he didn't get to dictate how she felt about that role. "So we have to go...but we miss you. Thank you for everything. We'll make you proud."

Al looked over at his brother to say something, one last goodbye to Mom, but it was at that moment his hands slammed into the circle and light filled the room as the array lit up. He turned to Nina and she waved...and then was gone. The room was quiet now, the only thing that could be heard was a few deep breaths and some creaking floor boards. He turned to see everyone else was contemplative and waiting for something to happen.

"Good job, Fullmetal." Roy said once he gave it enough time and made sure nobody else would be joining them and that his own ghost had vanished. "Ghosts or not, they helped us retrieve some old memories that were helpful."

"I just have more questions." Ed said and stood up.

"We will have to be careful about how we handle this mission." Riza said and Roy nodded in agreement. Now was the time to make sure Ed didn't end up in more danger. They had to be honest with him and she saw that Roy was in more receptive mood for that right now.

"This information was left here on display to lure the next alchemist in and keep him here." Roy said. "We're sure predictable creatures aren't we?"

"I agree." Ed said, he had already come to that conclusion and he knew Mustang was saying that to make him feel better. Commiserating as an alchemist because he too had been ensnared by it. "We should destroy it."

"Of course you'd say that." Roy said, without a trace of hostility.

"If you didn't come here with us, we would have been here for weeks." Ed explained. "It's killing me to walk away, it's like a addition...our own brand of drug. Truth. The work here, it's enough to trap someone here for a lifetime..."

"That's the point." Roy interrupted. "If we destroy it, we admit that we found something dangerous."

"Someone else might not be able to walk away from here!" Ed shot back.

"The Colonel is right Ed, so are you." Riza said. "This house is probably being watched, waiting for someone to come along and advance this research."

"Yeah, waiting for someone to make a damned Gate!" Ed snapped.

"Ed." Roy said softly and was amazed at how easily it got the kid's attention. "Listen to me, I know what I'm doing. It's more dangerous to let on that we are aware of what happened here, aware of what this place holds, aware that this goes a lot further than some mentally unstable alchemist. We _will_ dismiss this as a bad lead, and walk away. I will play my part, complain about how you wasted my damned time and how it would have better been spent going to a carnival with one of my dates. You will argue with me, like you always do, saying that it's your job to follow leads like this and maybe you'd like to be a little more outraged that Grange wasn't punished for what he did at the Veteran's hospital. We fight, like we always do, I go back to work and you go on your next journey and don't talk about this again. Got it?"

Ed narrowed his eyes and realized that their relationship was a lot more show than Mustang let on. The guy he was here in this house, the alchemist, was really what he was underneath the uniform and the arrogance. He often forgot that, that Mustang _was_ an alchemist and a really talented one at that. The research here had the same call to him, that intoxicating grip that was hard to pull away from. He was also a strategist and had his act down to a science, he never wanted anyone to realize exactly what he was capable of. The fact that the three of them had made so much sense of this in just a few days, meant that they were well above average. Possibly better used in some other capacity by the State. Possibly too much of a risk because they uncovered the truth all too easily. They all did have a part to play and it was so they could continue to look for answers and not find themselves in a place like this. Yeah, Mustang was right. "Yeah. Maybe I can even hit you to sell it?"

"I'll stuff your short ass under the porch and leave you here." Roy countered with a smile.

"Colonel?" Al asked and he looked up at him ready to answer what he could, honestly. "Is this what you saw when you met us the first time?"

Roy wasn't sure what the question was. "No Al, I saw two kids dabbling in something they shouldn't have. I saw and smelled blood that had been spilled recently enough that I could have stopped it if I arrived a little sooner."

"You couldn't have stopped us." Ed said. It wasn't defiance, it was fact.

"No, I mean, when you offered to help my brother become a State Alchemist." Al asked. "Were you afraid we'd be turned into something like this, researchers able to make something out of someone else' lost cause?"

"Are you asking if I recruited him so I could protect him?" Roy asked and Al nodded and Ed just stared at him wide eyed, waiting. He ran his hand through his hair. "At the time...I didn't know things were this bad. I knew that if the military found out about you two, if they found out what you two had achieved, there was a good possibility you would end up in a lab somewhere. One to be studied, one studying."

"This could have been us." Al said and shook his head.

"It _was_ us." Ed said.

"It was my father too." Riza interjected. "It's what happens when you let the alchemy consume you, you lose your grounding in the real world."

"However we are going back out into that world and eyes are on us." Roy said. "So be careful. I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue anything, but be smart about it. I'm not saying that this house might _someday_ be razed either. Just not with a paper trail that leads back to us or in a time frame too coincidental to not be us. Kids love to burn houses down in October, don't they, Lieutenant?"

Riza watched Ed's eyes spark with understanding. "Yes, sir. Halloween and all. Mischief night."

Ed watched Mustang grab his uniform from the other room and button it up. It was time to go back to their normal routines and that included the bickering and insults. The Colonel had this under control. "Are you sure you don't want a rematch on our Fullmetal versus Flame fight? I think we might be able to level this place _on accident_."

"Collateral damage is still going to be impossible to explain." Roy turned and shook his head. "Let's go, _you've wasted enough of my damned time on this._ "

Ed grinned and followed Mustang as he walked to the front door. "Well then why don't you refer me to someone who actual gives a damn about the fact that this guy got off easy, he experimented on people!"

Roy opened the door and enjoyed the sun hitting his face and a rush of fresh air. He didn't realize how dark and stale the atmosphere in the house was until this moment. "Then join the medical corps review board, that's not my problem."

"Not your problem!"

"You're the only amputee who is my problem, _Fullmetal_." Roy countered and he heard Ed scoff, almost chuckle. "A pain in my ass who drug me out here for no good reason. What do you want me to do? He's dead? You want me to dig him up and execute him?

"Someone let this happen!"

"It's called lack of funding, Fullmetal, something you are going to experience very soon if I don't get back to work and figure out how to handle all the damages that follow in your wake." Roy said and stepped off the porch and began to make his way to the car.

Al listened to them scream at each other outside as they put on a show loud enough for half the town to hear. "Back to normal, I guess."

"I think we're a little better than normal now." Riza said and gave him a pat on the arm as she felt in her jacket for the car keys. "We can keep some of the past behind us instead of in our peripheral vision. It's distracting us from moving forward."

* * *

AN: And it's complete! Thank you for reading.


End file.
